This invention relates to tape recorders and more particularly it concerns a system for automatically controlling and synchronizing the operation of a tape recorder to correctably correspond to the movement along a determined route of the vehicle in which the invention is mounted.
In the past, the system have relied only on the odometer of the vehicle to provide the information on the location of a vehicle. Typical of these systems are BARBIER, U.S. Pat. No. 3,711,653 and KEAN, U.S. Pat. No. 3,575,575. The difficulties with these past system are numerous, but four major difficulties encountered are: the lack of ability to account for deviations by the vehicle operator from the planned and pre-recorded routes; the inherent inaccuracies of the standard odometers; the complete lack of correlation with an external reference system; and the lack of uniformity and the consequent appearance of randomness inhibiting the use of the system from becoming a learned capability of the user. The errors caused by deviation from the planned route, and the inherent inaccuracies in odometers are cumulative and the longer the deviation, or the trip, the greater the errors between particular passages on the tape recording and the vehicle location become.
It is an object therefore to provide a system whereby correlation of the sequence and position of the tapes, with the location of the vehicle, is easily and accurately achieved by correlation with an external reference system.
In addition, prior systems usually provided tapes which were usable in only one direction, uni-directional. Consequently, the distributor of the tapes could only sell them, or face the redistribution problem of returning a specific tape to its original distribution point. It is therefore a objective of this invention to provide bi-directional tapes, usuable and correlatable in either direction over a determined route, of uniform distance, so that cooperating distributors can shuttle the tape back and forth between them, economically, and the use of the invention can be a learned capability of the user.
Further, in the past, no attempts have been made to establish a means for correlating tapes between intersecting, dividing, or merging routes. Combined with the previously discussed draw back of uni-directional systems, the lack of route correlation makes the number of tapes required by prior systems to adequately present the desired information over a whole network of routes in one area, state, or country, approach astronomical proportions. It is therefore an objective of this invention to provide for bi-directional tapes and correlation of the tapes and tape sections to specific route segments, especially on U.S. Interstate Routes, and thereby provided substantial coverage over a network of routes over the entire United States or any other specific area, with a finite number of easily managed tapes.